It’s the end of week four, and this hypertrophy cycle.
This post will be a recap of this week and the cycle as a whole-what went right and what I would change.
I’ll begin with today, which was bench press day. It went well, I continued to add weight to the bar and narrowly missed my tenth rep on set two. I should have moved the bar a little faster on the eccentric phase and that would have probably allowed me to finish the rep. I was so close and it pissed me off because I know I could have finished it if I had another chance. Anyway here’s the video, you can see how close I got for yourself:
Yeah frustrating to watch…I know. So close.
But, still a solid day and a great way to end this hypertrophy cycle.
To recap the cycle as a whole:
What Went Well
As you can see in the sidebar tracker on the main page I added significant weight to all of my lifts, which will pay dividends moving forward. I added 95 total pounds to the 10RM’s of my four lifts. Individually that’s +30 on deadlift, +20 on squat, +35 on bench press, and +10 on chin-ups. I also gained over four pounds of bodyweight (my goal was 5 during this cycle). And I won’t have a final number on that until Monday, since that’s the day I’ve been weighing in each week. Solid gains in four weeks.
Also, this cycle gave me a nice mental break away from throwing and allowed me to just focus on training hard in the weight room. It gave me a chance to miss baseball and I’m excited to get back to throwing.
What I Would Change
For the most part I wouldn’t change much, but if I’m nitpicking I would beef up my core stability work some. Two of the days are pretty heavy with core stability, but the other two days could probably handle a volume upgrade. Outside of that this cycle was planned well and executed well.
Thanks for checking in during this journey. I hope you’ve enjoyed these first four weeks, stay tuned for the next training block starting Monday. Have a great weekend!